​Fascinated by the fact that Anna Greki wrote the entire book of poems, Algerie Capitale Alger, while incarcerated in Serkadji prison in Algiers, I decided to research the idea of creation in isolation. I explored the items in my room at Les Ateliers Sauvages, while I was a resident there. I stared at the Venetian blinds day after day and began to film them. Then I stared at the light, I noticed how it looked like an eye when I closed the aperture of the camera more and more. An eye that was always watching, the light that burned the insects, small harmless beings within it.

Photos of the installation at Les Ateliers Sauvages in Algiers, Algeria.​

I placed the cloth, a veil, around the space, both a protection and a sign of the hidden nature of things underneath our skin, our human foibles. I had been taking many photos of these draperies on the buildings in Algiers where there was so much renovation going on, while considering Anna Greki describing the city as Alger la blanche. For me the white was the drapery which protected us all from the dust of the restorations, of the perpetual process of renewal of this city. I placed several standing lamps to illuminate the space, to make it brighter than bright almost painful to see. The lights made the room hot and referenced a form of torture with light, for me a reference to the torture that Anna Greki had experienced while in prison. The light also created beautiful shadows like I had seen on the buildings in Algiers in the afternoon, a beautiful symphony of light and shadow, regardless of what was underneath this bridal veil.

​A video collection of interviews including the poet Abderrahmane Djelfaoui, the poet and translator Lamis Saidi, and the photographer Imene Nesrine Kerdel.​

I included sound Installations with the voice of Abderrahmane Djelfaoui and my own voice reading my poems inspired by Anna Greki and the city of Algiers. You could listen to the voices on an mp3 player while looking at a photo of the white fabric on a building near Les Ateliers Sauvages.​

Take your time, you will need itWhen the last breath comes, take it slowlyA memory of torture as it feeds on itself

Take your time, you are going to need itWhen they come for you in the street, the bulliesAnd the bravards, one in the same

Take your time, you will miss itTo weep in the night as you long for a futureToo far to glimpse

Take your time, it will measureHow it all ends up, how fast or slowYou find the path

Take your time, as you walkThey will judge youAs you judge yourself

Take your time, to think it overTo make these choicesFor they are not only for yourself.

​by Anne Murray

​AlgerListen here: soundcloud.com/annemurrayartist/alger-by-anne-murray​The further I travel away, the closer I amTo what is true within me.Arms enfolding in a twisting motionIt is no good to try to hug myself.My strength must come from somethingon the outside working inwarddrilling its way to a centerwhere matter appears meaningless,but for each small effort.

The casualties of daily struggles lie strewnin myriad patternswhere I stopped participatingand my shadow slipped as silenceinto water.A nightfall at midday, an eclipse of self, a halojust bright enough to trace its shape,it is a promise to myself that I wouldlet go of everythingfor something,not anticipated but divined.

In the streets I hear them, the small criesfirst starlingsand then the birds of prey,a predatory predilectionwould banish me to life without,while inside a fire still burns.

The consummation of myselfAshes from which I draw a new spiritAn awkwardness of beingAn animal limb upon limbWould harm itself on its own shell.

The broken patterns of debris,An embryonic detritus,No one but me would touch,My hand as on a baby’s head,Explores its texture with aThoughtful tendernessGaining ground, I rise from stepsAnd the stench of human fluids,not meant to be sharedmake me cautious of my clothes. Here I have transgressed a social contextof unintended impact,a woman asks from her windowfor me to come insidebut I smile and allow myself the opportunityonly in my mind.

by Anne Murray

DateListen here: soundcloud.com/annemurrayartist/date-by-anne-murray​The pit of the date emerges from my mouth.My tongue and teeth working in a fine motion,Not even the smallest morsel of flesh remainsA clean birth of the future fruit from which, I,Might once again,be nourished.

Bittersweet scent of citrus,Fingertips as I touch my faceIn an absent gestureI reflect uponits source, the orange,an emissary from the sun.

How will you know me,When I am gone?the peel of this orangea delicate scent that will not endureor the datewhich emergesfrom the embrace ofverdant armsas fruiton your tongue?

Words of othersWould witness my presenceShadows of whomI might have beenor once was

an emptiness present onlybecause they remembermoments sharedwith me.will you search for my existence,for evidence of thingsyou might have askedbefore?

Echos of thoughts, reboundingFrom across waves of timeWe exist in the memories of othersIn our exchangeI know I am here only becauseYou are.